


The Summer Of the Dried-Up Leaves

by littl_prince, princealice



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Teenage Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28478460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littl_prince/pseuds/littl_prince, https://archiveofourown.org/users/princealice/pseuds/princealice
Summary: He looked so open, warm and bright without becoming the unbearable scorch of a summer’s day, that Severus only just stopped himself from doing a double-take. 'What had this boy’s life been like,' he thought.A fic for the 2020 Snapebang! Beta and art by the wonderful princealice (@hbprincealice on Tumblr)
Relationships: Severus Snape/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33
Collections: Snape Bigbang 2020





	1. The Old Tree

Sometimes dawn took over from darkness much faster than one might expect. Today sunrise came to rows upon rows of brick houses, and light crept in through a second-story window onto a small and fragile-looking bed. The sheets were tangled and half of them were trailing on the ground, as if the boy inside it had been in a hurry to get up.

And dawn came to the top of a grassy hill, with light hitting the brownish leaves of a lone, wizened, and crooked tree.

The hole in the trunk was too small to fit a teenage boy, which was possibly why he was currently nestled between two thick branches, sleeping. Not soundly; he fidgeted and turned restlessly, and it was almost surprising he didn’t fall. It was as if the branches were holding him in their grasp, and sometimes they even seemed to bend to catch him, swinging like a particularly sturdy hammock.

“Severus.”

In a second, his eyes were wide open, as if he’d been awake behind the closed eyelids for a while. Then he blinked a few times, still lying on his back, staring up at the canopy of leaves above him.

Only after a good few seconds did he sit up. The branches rustled. He took a breath, and looked down. 

There was no one there. Everything was quiet, except for birdsong coming from the distance. He looked around a bit before sighing. He shouldn’t be disappointed. He’d heard it in his sleep.

The sunlight that had tinged his grey shirt orange a few minutes ago was now high enough in the sky that it had resumed its usual form. The kind you couldn’t see, but forced you to see everything that it touched. Severus hated it.

He didn’t want to get down just yet. So instead he shifted backwards until his back hit a thick branch, and pulled his legs up to his chest. He rested his chin on his knees and closed his eyes.

The drought had been severe for a month or so, making some of the leaves dry up. As the wind picked up, they made a rustling sound much louder than Severus had ever heard before. They had always been trusty when it came to blocking the sun, and now they were loud enough to drown out other noises too. He considered it a bonus.

He really didn’t want to work today, he thought, listening to the leaves above. It was almost as if it were autumn and someone was stepping on a large pile of them, fallen.  _ They may as well be,  _ Severus thought. They were all dried up and useless; before he would have guessed the tree would drop the dead leaves, but it looked like it was unable to or something. Maybe you couldn’t drop dry leaves if it was still summer. They rattled on, not even dislodged by the strong wind, a constant reminder.

Severus might like the sound, but he did hope the drought would end soon.

He sighed again before swinging his legs over to one side of the thick branch and sliding off. Before he left its side, he gave the tree a small kick. It was a thing he did; force of habit.

He stood looking down for a moment, at the clusters of small, cramped buildings leaning back against the hill he was on. Doing that had made him feel big, before. Now he just felt stupid. He might as well go back.

He ran down the slope, against the wind. It whistled in his ears and tugged at his overly large shirt, following him all the way back to his street.

The inside of the house was hot and stuffy. Severus forced the kitchen window open and took a look around the small, cramped room. He needed to get the ceiling light fixed, he thought, but for some reason he hadn’t been able to muster his energy to do it so far. He turned and headed down the creaking stairs to the basement.

It was cooler down there. He crossed the tiny space and outstretched his arm with his fingers splayed, pressing his palm onto a brick on the wall. A heavy wooden door materialized, and he slipped behind it.

He stood in a room larger than the ground floor of his house. There were half a dozen stone stoves lining the opposite wall, shaped like fireplaces. Cauldrons of various shapes and sizes and a large pantry stood to his left, and in the middle of the underground workshop there was a working table.

A parchment of the day’s orders was already on it. He skimmed through it, then set to work, placing three of the large cauldrons over stoves. Purifying Potion first, he thought to himself as he lit the fires beneath them, he would need to start with the Vanishing Solutions and the Flame Swallowers later to make the timings line up.

Moving around the space was easy. Monotone, calm, with nothing to disturb him but the occasional sparks from overexcited fires. He listened to the crackling and bubbling noises until his mind phased them out, chopped ingredients and squeezed juices out until a fresh layer of stains coated his gloves. 

He shook his arms to rid himself of the soreness. It had taken him a while to get used to this. Now he moved like clockwork across the space. He wasn’t sure whether he should be proud of himself for that.

Of all the things he wondered whether his mother had been doing to earn enough money to keep them going, this hadn’t been on the list. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was that he’d always assumed she was different from him in all the ways it mattered. But this was a thing she had done, he thought as he waited for the mixture in front of him to turn grey. A thing he could do well, too.

For some reason, he found he was restless today. Maybe it was because now he had found his rhythm with the work. In any case, he may as well leave the potions to cool down and head outside again for a bit. He headed back through the door, up out of the basement and ventured out into the sun.

He walked between the crisscrossing alleys surrounding the brick buildings for a while, looking for a place to sit. At last he came across a particularly abandoned-looking house, and sat down on its front steps.

After a few minutes, he heard footsteps coming around the corner. He tensed without really realizing it, but then he saw that it was a boy around his age. He thought he’d seen him around a few times, but had no idea who he was. He had no idea who almost anyone around here was.

The boy’s head turned, and their eyes met. And to Severus’s bewilderment, his face split into a wide smile, as though he’d just seen someone he was beyond delighted to have run into.


	2. The Boy Who Just Wouldn't Let the Matter to Rest

He was a round-faced boy with big eyes, and blond hair that looked tinged with green in the blinding sunlight.

“I’m Christopher,” he said, holding out a hand. “But everyone calls me Chip.”

Severus stared silently for a moment, but the outstretched hand in front of him didn’t withdraw. So he reached out and shook it warily, not saying a word.

“Is it alright if I hang here for a bit?”

He blinked up at him. The friendly grin on the boy’s face didn’t falter. The smile was easy and it made Severus scowl.  _ Why? _

“Fine,” he said after a few seconds.

Chip beamed. “Thanks,” he said. He sat down on the steps next to Severus, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“What’s your name, then?” he said.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Well, what should I call you, then?”

_ You could just not. _ “Whatever you want to.”

“Debbie Gaite and her lot call you ‘Sleeves’.”

“Why?” he asked, despite himself.

“‘Cause they saw you in long sleeves, a few years back, I think, on a scorching hot day. They think you’re a weirdo.”

Severus said nothing.

“Hey,” the boy’s round face came into his line of vision. He looked worried. “Don’t take it personally, I was — they think everyone’s a weirdo.”

“... Okay.”

“I’m sorry if it offended you.”

“It’s fine.”

“So what do I call you?”

It was remarkable how fast and unexpectedly the boy could get back on track. It was almost amusing. Almost.

“You can call me Sleeves, I don’t care.”

“Right,” said Chip. “So you’re just not gonna tell me.” 

_ No.  _ “No.”

The boy sighed, then grinned. “I heard you live alone.”

Trying to keep up with this conversation felt like being tossed about in a stormy sea. “Was that from Debbie Gaite too?”

Chip’s grin grew wider. “I’m not gonna tell you,” he said. “Is it true, then?”

Severus nodded. He might as well.

“You’re not of age.”

“What’s it to you?” Severus snapped, and the boy suddenly looked anxious again. Severus felt a dull clench in his chest, and he hated everyone and everything.

“I’m not — I wasn’t trying to… insinuate anything, I just thought it was really cool.” A few seconds’ silence. “I’m sorry.”

This time Severus did not tell him it was fine. He glared stubbornly in the other direction, and after a moment he heard Chip get up.

“I, er, I’ve gotta go,” he said. “Bye. Sorry.”

Severus didn’t answer, or turn around to see him walking away. He kicked the ground in front of him and watched the dust rising lazily up from it, assuming that would be the end of that.

Two days later, he ran into Chip again. This time he had gone out to the playground, to escape the fumes and the tediousness. The seesaw was rusty now, and if he gripped the chains of the swings for a few minutes he could smell metal on his hands. He was doing just that, and grimacing, when he spotted him approaching. Chip raised a cheery hand when their eyes met, and Severus blinked.

“Hey.” Chip stopped in front of the swings. He lay his hand against one of the poles, as if cautiously asking for permission. “I was on my way to get some things to eat, from the shops.”

“Right.”

“Do you remember me?”

He looked so open, warm and bright without becoming the unbearable scorch of a summer’s day, that Severus only just stopped himself from doing a double take.  _ What had this boy’s life been like, _ he thought.

“Yes,” he said. Then, “Your name’s Chip.”

“Yeah! You remembered.”

_ Does it really make him that happy?  _ Chip looked elated.

“If you’ve got the time,” the boy continued, suddenly looking a bit sheepish again, “I would like to have someone coming with me to the shops?”

One part of Severus’s mind was whispering not to,  _ this’ll end in either disappointment or disaster, haven’t you learned, _ and he hesitated.

_ I’ve got nothing better to do. And he’s not asking me to sign a life-determining contract. He’s asking me to go to the shops with him. _

“Alright.”

They passed through the better-off side of town. On their way past the identical, polished-looking houses, Severus spotted a terribly familiar silhouette, and made a noise in his throat before darting off the road and around a building. His heart had dropped to his stomach.

Chip came around to him not long after. Severus was staring at the ground. He knew he shouldn’t have come. There had only been a few people out and about, there was no way Chip wouldn’t have seen who he had just run from.

_ Ask me about her. _ He tensed, preparing a retort.

“Do you wanna wait here for a bit?” said Chip.

Severus blinked. He searched and searched but he couldn’t find scorn. And so then, he nodded.

He ran into Chip for the third time the day after that. He had come out to the playground again, to cool off; well, metaphorically, it was probably the hottest day of the summer so far. And again, the blond boy seemed positively delighted to see him; it confused Severus to no end.

“God, it’s hot out today, do you want to go to the stream and cool off, after grabbing some ice cream from town?”

“Okay.”

The next day, Severus realized around noon that he’d been thinking about going to the playground since morning. He had to get a tighter grip on the work, he thought. But he left the house at half past one.

Every day Chip asked two things; Severus’s name, and if he would be in the playground the next day. Severus didn’t answer either one. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told Chip his name; maybe he liked being called Sleeves. It made him feel like he was a different person.

“What other things does Deb Gaites know about me?” he asked. 

They were sitting in what apparently used to be the living room of an abandoned house. Chip apparently knew the nooks and crannies of town pretty well, which was more than Severus could say about himself; he’d always been more the type to run off to forests and hills.

“Do you know Deb?”

“Don’t her friends call her Debbie?”

“ _ Only _ her friends call her Debbie.”

“I think I might have seen her and her friends around, I’m still not sure who she is, though.”

“She’s short, and she’s got short brown hair.”

“Right.”

“Anyway,” said Chip, “she isn’t, you know — she doesn’t have bad intentions or anything. She just notices things really well, I think. She’s actually pretty nice.”

_ That’s not saying much when you choose to spend time with me. _ “Mhm.”

“Why,” Chip grinned, “is there a secret you’d like to keep hidden?”

Severus looked at the boy for a moment.

“Not secrets,” he said, “as much as… rumours.”

He had no idea why he had said that.  _ Disappointment or disaster,  _ the back of his mind whispered.

“Oh,” said Chip. He frowned as though he was thinking about it. “I don’t know about any rumours,” he said after a moment.

“You don’t?”

“No,” he said. “They’re none of my business.”

When they parted that day, Chip asked Severus his name; he didn’t answer it, as always. Then,

“Playground tomorrow?” asked Chip.

Severus paused.

“Yeah,” he said.


	3. The Day He Almost Wishes Didn't Happen

A few days later, they went into town again. Severus kept an eye out for any familiar silhouettes. Chip spotted a couple of frogs on the way and insisted that they stand and watch them until they hopped into a nearby bush.

“Should they even be out and about in weather like this?”

The sun was beating down upon them, the sky cloudless, and everything was dry as dust but for what was left of the stream.

“They’ll live.”

“You sure about that?” Chip grinned. He did that whenever Severus’s tone became deadpan. He seemed to find it funny. Usually, Severus hated people finding things he did funny. It was strange, how he’d found himself using that tone more often lately. It was even stranger that he didn’t hate that about himself upon realizing it.

As they passed the miniature park close to the shops, they spotted an old woman trying to reach a kite stuck in a tree.

“Hello there,” Chip called. “Do you need help?”

It turned out that Chip was just short of reaching the branch the kite was resting on. Severus, having gotten this far and knowing Chip would probably stick around until the kite was back in the woman’s hands, offered to climb it himself.

“But it doesn’t have many footholds,” said Chip, eyeing the smooth trunk.

Severus scaled the tree in about fifteen seconds, and he tossed the kite down after fishing it out of the tree's brownish, dried leaves.

“A right old scavenger, that tree is,” said the woman, after she thanked them. “Last year, the Wynns next door got their dog’s frisbee stuck in it and they weren’t able to get it out till it rained.”

“You can ask him when it steals something again,” said Chip cheerily, gesturing to Severus.

“Where do you boys live?” said the woman. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around town before, and I’ve lived here twenty-three years.”

“Oh, we live down across the river, near the mill.”

Severus had discovered that Chip seemed to have no hesitation in answering questions like that. It was as if he were immune to things like double-takes and pity.

“The mill, you say?” The woman frowned slightly, looking up from her kite. “You have to be careful around those parts, especially if you live there.” She lowered her voice. “The things that happen in that area — just this month, I heard that a woman murdered her husband and then disappeared. A shame. From what I know they used to be such decent people too.”

Severus froze in an instant, going stock still. He felt a pounding in his head. He told himself that there was no way she knew, and there was no way she would know if he just didn’t show it. But he couldn’t feel his fingers.

It seemed the rumours that had followed him since he’d returned had finally caught up to him again. He’d run away from it from the moment he’d arrived, and the place he’d chosen as a refuge had been the old tree. On the days the wind did not blow, though, he could still hear the whispers in his ears.

So now, Severus kicked the old tree whenever he went there. Maybe it was his fault that its leaves had become brown and parched now, in the middle of summer.

Chip was silent and still next to him. And blood drummed in his ears and he wanted to just take off running, go to who knows where, get out of this rotten old place and never return.

The woman was quiet for a moment before she cleared her throat, said “Well,” and walked away, looking mortified. Severus kept standing there after she had disappeared down the street, with his head down and his hands in his pockets, fists balled around sleeves that were too long.

At last, he saw Chip moving into his line of vision. Neither of them said a word. After what felt like hours, Severus raised his head. Chip opened his mouth to speak.

“Is it okay if… if I hug you?”

“What?” Severus spluttered. He felt his face grow red; he hadn’t meant to sound that incredulous. 

Chip’s eyes flickered towards his face, then off to the side, and then back again, like he was anxious. He did a half-shrug, opened his mouth before closing it. Severus saw that his hands were in his pockets, too.

Severus breathed in, then made a small shuffling step forward.

Chip’s clothes were worn and rough under his chin. He balled his hands into fists behind the boy’s back, not sure what to do with them. There was a hand on his shoulder, anchoring him. It was a strange feeling. He didn’t want it to stop.

After a long moment, Chip whispered, “D’you wanna go somewhere?”

“Alright.” 

They pulled apart. Severus searched Chip’s face for a few seconds but didn’t see pity. 

“You can call me Severus,” he said.

Chip looked at him for a moment. “Okay.”

They went back into town and Chip pulled him into an alleyway, looking mischievous. They went into a small shop whose ceiling looked like it was about to cave in, and Chip told Severus to pick out snacks. When Severus got back with them in his hand, he found Chip pointing confidently at a packet of cigarettes to the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

“Thanks, Meena.” Chip began digging through his pockets for money. Severus suddenly remembered that didn’t have any on him, and he felt his face grow hot. He turned to try and take the snacks back, but Chip caught him before he could escape, grabbing the bag with his free hand.

“They’re for me,” he grinned.

So Severus set the bag back on the counter.

“So you have a sweet tooth,” Chip observed, later.

They were in another alley, dark and cramped, sitting on top of a thrown-out mattress behind a metal fence they’d climbed over. Chip had sworn no one ever passed by the place.

Severus eyed the bag of biscuits he’d chosen, and nodded.

“Go on, then.” Chip pulled out a lighter from one of his many pockets, and held it up to his cigarette. Severus stared at the way the orange and blue light danced in his eyes.

He hesitated, then reached for the open bag between them, pulling one out.

“Why’d you try to take them back?” asked Chip, reaching for one himself.

“I didn’t have any money on me.”

“What did you think we were going to do, when you picked these out, then?” There was laughter in his voice.

“Dunno,” said Severus, “steal them?”

Chip snorted. “You try stealing from Meena,” he said, “you’ll probably have nightmares about it for years. Besides,” he took a drag from the cigarette, “what do you take me for?”

Severus paused. Chip turned around to face him.

“You’re strange,” he answered at last. The night was suddenly quiet.

“Is that good or bad, then?”

Severus opened his mouth.

“Don’t you dare say you don’t know,” Chip added quickly. His eyes were still glimmering, and he suddenly looked nervous.

Severus blinked.

“I…”

Their faces were very close. When he realized it, he started, and he almost leaned away.  _ Don’t laugh at me, please, I can’t stand it. _

Later, he almost regretted that nearly all of the biscuits ended up spilling over the dirty mattress. If he’d known, he’d probably have crammed in some more beforehand. He was hungry.

He let Chip walk him to his house. At the door, Chip smiled that way he did, and they kissed again. The cogs were turning furiously in Severus’s head as he blindly reached out and found an arm, torn between the possibility of embarrassment and the excruciating ache in his drumming chest. He decided that he would let Chip pull away first, and, terrified of what would happen after, he hung on.

Chip did not pull away first.


	4. The Accusations of Friendship He Probably Could Have Avoided

The next week, Chip helped Severus fix the flickering lightbulb in his kitchen. He was handy with mechanical things; that was one of those brags he would tell with a massive grin on his face that also proved to be true.

They also held hands sometimes. For some reason Severus felt more steadied when they did that, like his existence was firmer. That feeling was new to him. Though when Chip leaned over to touch his face like he was afraid he’d run off, his heart seemed to leave his ribcage and he became unmoored. That was new as well.

They went to Meena’s store regularly to buy fizzy drinks and biscuits.

“You tail him like you’re his shadow,” she said to Chip one day, gesturing at Severus. The boy had grinned like that was the most wonderful compliment he’d ever been given. 

After that Meena started giving them free snacks every once in a while, something that Chip called a small miracle. Severus took his word for it.

He now knew Chip’s schedule so well he could have convincingly played out a week of his life, if he just had his hands on some Polyjuice. He worked some evenings at his cousin’s small business, for instance. Severus realized he missed the boy when he was gone.

It was on one such evening that he was sitting on a small hill near the river, listening to rustling dry leaves and watching the street below him, that he met Debora Gaites. He didn’t hear her coming; he just turned his head and she was there.

“Hello,” she said. She was short and skinny and was wearing baggy clothes. She was also eating a lollipop, and it made her words slightly muffled.

Severus blinked up at her for a few moments.

“It’s me, Deb Gaites.”

“Oh.” 

So, this was her. Giver of uncreative nicknames, keeper of his most surface-level secrets.

“You gotta give me more than that,” she said, punching his arm lightly. Severus didn’t answer for a moment.

“Have we… met before?”

“Nope, why?”

“You’re… acting like we’ve met before.”

“Weird way to tell me that I’m friendly to people I’ve only just met, but alright, I’ll take the compliment.”

Severus eyed her warily, and considered scowling.

“Speaking of being friendly,” she said, “can I call you by your real name?”

“I don’t care,” he said after a pause.

“Alright then,” she said, sitting herself down next to him. She turned to look at him, suddenly stern. “About Chip.”

Severus wanted to drill himself into the ground.  _ And when someone pulls me out, I’ll start shrieking like a mandrake, _ he thought. If only.

“Chip asked us who you were, ‘bout two weeks ago,” she said. She talked like she was lost in her thoughts.

“Oh,” he said.

“He looks like he’s all carefree, right,” she stomped her feet on the ground as if to get the dirt off her shoes, “but he’s not. I’d be careful with him.”

It sounded vaguely like a threat. Severus blinked at her.

“I’m saying,” she said, holding her lollipop in her fingers like one might hold a cigarette and pointing it in his face, “that if you’re playing with him, you’d better stop now.”

Severus blinked again, this time at the lollipop.  _ I thought he was the one playing with me. _

“I’m not,” he said.

“That’s good.” She peered at him. It felt less uncomfortable than he might have thought. “You go off somewhere every year, and only come back during summer.”

“How do you —”

She smirked so widely it became a beaming smile.

“I just, you know, find out about those things.” She sounded smug.

“Wait.” He frowned. “The way Chip talks about you — you two aren’t even that close, are you?”

“How’d you define ‘close’?”

Her eyes were twinkling, and her grin was cheeky. He scowled.

Despite their less than friendly first conversation, she announced afterwards that she would treat him to ice cream, and they parted on surprisingly good terms. And if Severus thought that would be the end of that, he was once again mistaken. It turned out that Debora Gaites had an uncanny ability of turning up whenever he was starting to get slightly bored, especially during the nights when Chip was working. A few days after their first meeting, she found him leaving food out near the river.

“Ah, so you’re the one responsible for keeping the foxes in this town thriving,” she said, after Severus had reluctantly told her what he was doing. She pointed an accusatory finger at him. It almost made him laugh.

Today there was another girl by her side, who was slightly taller than Severus. She had thick bangs by which her forehead was almost completely covered, and her eyes were kind. Not that Severus ever trusted kind-eyed people.

“This is Allison Fischer.”

“Al,” said the girl, quiet but firm.

Deb took over again from there. “We come in a package, much like you and Chip do at the moment,” she said. “And you can usually find us near the old tire swings near the metal fence. You know where that is.”

_ I won’t go looking for you anyways.  _ “Right,” he said.

“Can you climb over that thing?”

“What thing?”

“The fence.”

He paused. “I think so,” he said after a moment.

“I can’t,” said Deb proudly. “Al can, though.”

“Right,” he said again.

Conversations with Deb were usually like that. They never went anywhere, but they always made him think about things. And that kept his mind off of other things. Severus realized he enjoyed them.

Deb hadn’t been lying when she said she and Al came in a package. When they came to see Severus, they came together. Al never talked much; unless he counted communicating with looks, because that she did, and a lot. Her eyebrows especially had a life of their own, and they laughed themselves silly once trying to get the other two to raise just one eyebrow the same way she did. A week later, Chip pointed out to him that he had just raised an eyebrow in exactly the same way Al did.

One evening, Severus was sitting in the old tree again, watching the sun slowly dip. He thought hard to himself about something he couldn’t remember afterwards, before he slid off it. His feet led him to the metal fence and he walked alongside it until he spotted them.

“Hey,” Deb called when she saw him approaching. “It’s about time.”

Al turned, and her eyes were smiling. Severus decided that he could bear Debbie’s teasing for this, and sat himself down on one of the swings.


	5. The Regrettable O.W.L. Results

He supposed he’d been expecting an owl to come, but he was still surprised when he spotted it one morning, flying through the air towards the kitchen window. He opened it and stepped back, and the owl skidded to a graceless halt on the small kitchen table. It held out its leg.

After it had flapped off into the sky again, he opened the envelope and pulled out the thick piece of parchment inside. His heart was in his throat and he felt vaguely nauseous.

His eyes ran down the parchment, then once again, slower this time. He had unexpectedly gotten an E in History of Magic; he figured he should be happy about that, when he had been tearing his hair out over the subject during study sessions. His Transfiguration grade, however, was an A. An A he’d barely scraped, he knew.

Every now and then he thought about the exams. They were the apex of his studies of five years, or so the upper-year students and teachers had always told them. The grades he held in front of him the fruits of his labour. And it felt hollow, like it was all meaningless. But that wasn’t true, he would move up another year and study advanced subjects, this time mostly the ones he actually wanted to take. He had been excited about that,  _ I can’t wait for it,  _ he’d told her.

He remembered the examiners, how foreign their kindness had been. He’d never been one for exam nerves, but the way old Professor Tofty had encouraged him during the Charms exam as one might a beloved nephew had thrown him off completely.

Then there had been the concern of the Hogwarts staff, after he, and by extension they, had gotten the news. Sprout had stopped him in the corridors to offer him tea from the staff room. McGonagall had given strange looks his way and offered to help him with anything he was dealing with. Even Pince had crept up to him in the library and asked him how he was doing.

He had hidden from it all.

He had wanted none of it, the coddling and the timid questions that he could see were nothing but morbid curiosity wrapped in pity. He didn’t need it, and he wouldn’t stand around taking it, he’d told himself, and he’d hid in abandoned classrooms until term ended. Sometimes he’d crawl inside a broom closet, sitting inside for what felt like hours. 

Maybe it was strange that he remembered that more clearly than the days before, between the end of the exams and when the news had reached him. He knew near nothing about what he’d done during that time. All he knew was that he’d been alone. Truly and utterly alone, he’d realized, for the first time in years. He had thought he’d long forgotten the feeling. But it had felt all too familiar.

_ Does she know about this?  _ He had thought to himself on one of his broom closet hideouts.  _ Does she care?  _ He had rubbed his eyes red and sore.  _ What if the news had come before? What might have happened then?  _ The Ministry employees who had come with the news had been impassive. Too impassive, some people might have said. They had stated the terms and left. Left a storm behind. 

Still, Severus thought he preferred that to what the teachers had been like. They had left him to fend for himself from the moment he had set foot in the castle, and then they had crouched down to ask him if he was alright once he had been knocked down. He didn’t need it, he’d told himself.

After the news there had been rumours. When he had dragged his trunk back to the only place he could call home. He had heard it whispered in the streets, spat in his face. He had wanted to run, but here there was no place to run to.

And so he had stayed. Took over his mother’s side job.  _ Don’t make a fuss about it,  _ the men who had delivered the news had said,  _ and we’ll take care of your education and ownership of the house. _ He had done just that. Kept his mouth shut. 

He had of course known that keeping his mouth shut didn’t mean the story wouldn’t be told. But he had been foolish enough to hope. After the rumours came, he had gone to the old tree, where people and their talk would not follow him. But all his thoughts had still trailed along with him there. That was why he’d made a habit out of kicking its trunk. He had been angry.

And then he had met Chip. 

The boy had come with warmth that was not suffocating, smiles that hid no trace of a sneer, and a myriad of nooks and crannies. He was the place to where Severus could run. He had given him that. And Severus had run to him.

_ Maybe I have used him, _ he thought. He knew that Chip wanted him to stay. He had purposefully avoided telling him that he was going to return to school. He had been afraid that the boy would leave him right there the moment he said that. Leave him without a place to hide.

But that was what would happen anyway, once the summer was over.

_ Unless I don’t return. _

From the moment he had first thought that, in the small stuffy kitchen he was now the owner of, the notion lingered. What if he didn’t return? What if he stayed here? That would be the very height of running away, from all the faces and words he did not want to face.

But when he thought of staying, he also thought of his parents.

“I don’t know what I should do.”

After he had said goodbye to Debbie, he sat alone in the dim sitting room for half an hour, wondering if he had made a mistake. Looking back, he would later realize that he had been desperate.

“You should probably go back,” she said.

He was silent for a moment. She was gazing at him with a serious look on her face that he didn’t know what to do with.

“I thought,” he said, looking down at his hands and then back at her. “I thought you’d tell me to stay.”

“Why?”

“Well, you talked about — you know, back at the hill…”

“Chip?” She smiled slightly, and the way she did it made Severus look away. “That was just because I didn’t know what kind of person you were, before.”

Severus was staring at his hands again. “And… you do know? Now?”

There was a long pause, the longest pause Debbie had ever taken. 

“Y’know,” she said, and she sounded like she was far away, “I’ve no idea.”

They were silent again for a moment. Severus watched Debbie as she swirled the water in her glass around.

“I still say you should go back,” she said, after a minute. “It’s school, you could still come back for winter and summer, you said. And you’ve gotta think about yourself. That’s not a bad thing at all.”

“Myself?”

“You know — your career, and everything.”

Severus looked at Debbie, and then around the house. He’d dusted the first floor this morning, but the light streaming in from the broken window showed him the million tiny flecks still floating through the air. 

As if he’d never cleaned the place at all.

“What career?” he said.


	6. The Farewell that Almost Changed His Mind

In the end, he told her that he would have to think about it some more. Deb stayed a while afterward and they chatted about everything and nothing. Severus was thankful to her for that but didn’t know how to say it, so in his usual fashion, he didn’t say anything. Once she’d left, the doubts all came flooding back in.

That night, he lay awake in bed, thinking about everything. Most of all, he thought of Hogwarts, where he now had no one beside him. Everyone would surely erase what had happened from their minds by the time September rolled around, and he would be left alone. Was there really any point in staying, if his next two years would be nothing more than hiding in abandoned classrooms, skipping meals, avoiding every glance thrown his way?

But what if he did actually leave? What then? 

He walked his mind through the steps he would take. He could still sit his N.E.W.T.’s. It wasn’t as if he was forbidden access to Flourish and Blotts if he didn’t go back to school. He could study by himself. Then he would get legitimate credentials for a potioneering job, maybe a bigger one than he was working right now. 

It was not a bad option, whichever way he looked at it. By studying at home, he could avoid not only the cold indifference and heavy scorn of the rest of the school, but also the recruiting efforts of the upper year Slytherins, which had been starting to get legitimately frightening. He could also continue to work throughout the year so that he could save up, and he might be able to build something for himself.

And he could also stay close to Chip, to Debbie and Al. The only people he had by his side after living sixteen and a half years.

But there was something holding him back from choosing that option. And lying in the darkness on his uncomfortable bed, listening to the loose window downstairs rattling from the wind outside, it came to him in the form of a question.

Was this what his mother had done?

Had she also run away to settle down with an option she thought was better in every way, and ended up imprisoning herself in it? Was what he was relying on not his studies or job at all, but the face of the person who was constantly at the front of his mind these days? Would he look back and lament about how stupid he had been?

His thoughts were bubbling water in a cauldron sure to boil over, and boil over it did, when he and Chip went to their usual spot in the abandoned building to hang out the very next day.

Severus brought it up first, almost by accident.

“About school,” he said. He almost immediately regretted it.

Chip turned to look at him. “Your school?”

“... Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Chip echoed, sounding wary. “What about it?”

“Term starts at the beginning of September,” said Severus. He had no idea where he was going to go with this.

“And you’re going to go back there,” said Chip.

“I… I don’t know.”

He felt Chip’s eyes on him.

“Do you have to go?”

“Yes. No. Not exactly.”

“Then maybe you…” Chip hesitated. “Maybe you should not go.”

“Why do you think so?”

“It was,” said Chip, “that place was bad for you.” 

“How do you know?” he said. He hadn’t meant to sound as snappish as he had. And Chip was suddenly a bit wide-eyed, and Severus hated himself.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure,” Chip shot back, his tone suddenly sharper, “but I don’t think you’d have talked about it like you did, if it’d been good.”

“Talk about it how?”

“I’m not stupid, I know those fights you said you got those scars from weren’t just fights. I’ve seen enough to know better. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

There was a pause, and Severus thought of the day by the lake, and how no one had noticed then. 

“Maybe you’re mistaken,” he said.

“Am I?”

Severus hesitated.

“I can’t,” he said, tripping over his words. He hated it when he did that, when his thoughts spilled over and he was left unable to control the flow. “I can’t just — throw away everything, all that, for —”

He cut himself off, and they were silent for a few moments.

“I know,” said Chip at last. “If you’re staying just for… for me, or Deb or Al, don’t. But…” He sighed, sounding agitated. “If there are, you know, other reasons you don’t want to go back… You can tell me.”

_ I can’t, _ thought Severus.  _ Not really, not without breaching a statute. But if I stay, there might come a day where I’ll have to tell you, and then who knows how fast everything will come crashing down. _

His thoughts must have shown on his face. Chip gazed at him for a moment before nodding slowly, his eyes suddenly overbright.

“It’s okay,” he said.

_ You don’t understand,  _ Severus wanted to say. But he didn’t know how he could make the boy understand. So he stayed silent.  _ Disappointment or disaster.  _ Except this time, it was somewhere in the middle. Severus thought he might prefer disaster.

They kissed, and Chip buried his face in Severus’s shoulder as they hugged each other tight. Severus realized they were both crying.

“Don’t go,” Chip said suddenly, against his chest. Severus knew he must feel it trembling.

“I have to.”

_ If he asks me one more time, I’ll stay, _ he thought. There was an eternity of waiting, during which he wondered whether he would miss the large castle with the high towers and turrets, if he did not return.

Chip gave a shuddering intake of breath.

“Okay,” he said, and it erased all the ridiculous plans and doubts in his mind with a swift punch to the gut.

And so, Severus did not stay.


	7. The Twenty-Three-Day-Long Downpour

The river overflowed, along with all the muck and dirt that had been in it.

Severus braved a trip outside one day, only to be chased back inside by the dirty water swarming down the street. Back in the dubious safety of the house — the kitchen ceiling was leaking — he contemplated just not wearing shoes, before deciding that was probably the stupidest idea he’d had in a while. So he instead dug through boxes and picked out the oldest, most frayed pair that fit him.

The weather had shifted so suddenly it felt like someone had flipped a switch. The scorching hot sun had been completely hidden for several days now. Instead, there were clouds, piled one on top of the other, low and gray.

Each time his feet hit the ground, water splattered everywhere. He ran down the street, head down and eyes squinting against the rain. His shoes were gathering water even quicker than he’d expected. The janky umbrella he had brought was going to be no use, so he just clenched his hand into a fist around it.

Meena’s store was empty but for Meena herself. She didn’t comment on the fact that he’d come alone.

He stood in front of the tiny snack aisle, looking for something to buy. He’d run out of things to eat back home; that was what had forced him to head outside, for the first time in three days.

After a moment, he found himself staring at the packet of biscuits that he had picked out on his first trip to the store. His chest felt hollow all of a sudden. He left the store empty-handed and trudged back home, not bothering to run.

An hour later, Severus was curled up in a chair and staring at the opposite wall when a knock at the front door halted the storm of his own thoughts. He got up and walked across to it, his heart in his throat.

Chip was standing outside his door. He was holding an umbrella but was still soaked from head to toe.

“Er,” said Severus, “come in?”

The boy made two large strides forward, and kissed him. Severus backed into the house, clinging to Chip’s shirt, stumbling a little as he went.

“Wait —”

They fell into the longer armchair, and Severus was pressed down from above. He could feel his clothes getting wet from the rain-drenched boy.

“Why are you here?” he said quietly, against his lips.

“I felt so stupid,” said Chip. Severus thought that should be followed up with some sort of explanation, but Chip pressed down a kiss again and he didn’t get a chance to ask.

“You’re all wet now,” Chip mumbled a few minutes later, still lying across Severus’s chest. There was laughter in his voice, though his eyes were red. His hands were picking at Severus’s sleeves.

“It’s uncomfortable.” _I can’t live with myself._

“D’you want me to get off you?”

Severus reached upwards, wrapped his arms around Chip’s shoulders tightly. He didn’t want to risk talking.

“Okay,” said Chip, chuckling. He didn’t get off him.

The next week passed in a bit of a blur. Severus quit his job. He spent almost all of his waking hours by his friends’ side. The day before he packed his bags, Debbie gathered all four of them and they ate lunch at a small family restaurant.

“My treat,” she announced. They ended up splitting the bill.

Afterwards, they went to the metal fence with ice cream in their hands and sat down on the grass to talk about everything and nothing. A few minutes before they disbanded, Al led him behind a tree, where she handed him a key ring with a little wooden palette dangling from it.

“I made it,” she said.

“You whittled it?”

“I whittle,” she said. “And paint.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I don’t tell everyone about it,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

Severus wanted to thank her, but he couldn’t get the words out. So he said nothing. That was one more thing he would regret, for weeks to come.

The day he was to leave for Diagon Alley, Chip arrived at his door to see him off. He watched as Severus lugged his trunk outside.

“Do you need help with that?” he said.

“It’s not that heavy,” said Severus.

“You will come back?”

Severus stopped in his tracks and turned to look at him. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I will.”

“I’ll be here,” said Chip. “When you get back… you can come and find me, if you want.”

_You’d have forgotten me by then._

Or maybe he wouldn’t. The look Chip was giving him caused a dozen second guesses to drive through his mind. Maybe Deb was right about even more things than Severus had thought, and the boy standing in front of him was not as carefree and easy a person as he seemed. Maybe he held onto baggage, and refused to drop his leaves when the cold months came.

And now Severus stood on the street, across the road from King’s Cross. His trunk, heavier than he was used to with all the N.E.W.T. material inside, was steadily getting wetter; it was raining here, too. He had tucked the key ring Al had given him inside a flap to protect it from the water.

He wondered what had happened to the old tree. If it would be alive when he got back next summer. If he was more naive, he might have hoped the rain would wash the wasted leaves wet, and everything would be fine. _Stupid,_ he thought. _Dead leaves don’t turn green again._ The best that could happen was if the rain would be the last bit of help the tree needed to drop them all, and move on.

He’d meant to have a last look at the old thing before he left. He felt fearful. As if when he got back, a stump would be in its place, and when he’d stop a woman on the street to ask her, she would say, “It died, and they had to cut it down. A shame. It’s been there such a long time.” And maybe a few years later, a child would spot the stump out on a walk through the town, ask his father about the tree.

“What tree?” he would say.

_I’ll drop my dry leaves,_ he thought. But summer was almost over, and if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t know if autumn would come slowly enough. And who knew, he might be unable to do it all through winter, and would only realize he was unable to grow new ones only when spring came. And then it would be too late.

_I was green too._ At least he had that thought to hang on to. _Before everything dried up, I was here. And I looked forward to things. I had places where I hoped to spread my roots._

He had that to look back on, he told himself. That when the air grew cold he would hold his breath, and he would remember.


End file.
